DESCRIPTION: (Scanned from the applicant's description) Type 2 diabetes is estimated to affect 16 million people in the U.S. Complications of diabetes impair the longevity and quality of life and include heart disease, stroke, retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy. In 1999 the estimated cost of diabetes in the U.S. exceeded $100 Billion. This proposal presents a plan to characterize a new model of Type 2 diabetes and obesity. The BBZDR rat will provide the research community with a superb model with which to study the pathogenesis, prevention, complications and therapy of human diabetes. We will continue to inbreed the rat to eliminate residual heterozygosity, we will employ a variety of hormone replacement and augmentative therapies to overcome the sterility associated with obesity. We will study by time course the development of diabetic dyslipidemia, retinopathy, neuropathy and nephropathy and cardiac restenosis. It is our expectation that this new model of Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes, will expedite the development of safe and effective pharmaceutical agents for the treatment of this important human disease. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: Not available